In company with our better half and the venerable A. M. Ramsey, last Sunday eve, we followed the growing custom of our neighbors, both old and young and strolled leisurely through our village graveyard.

It is interesting to note the final resting place of the dead, to read the dates and verses over the deceased, some of whom were old pioneers to this country, while others were veterans of the great civil war as the friends of later years.  It is reassuring to observe the care and attention bestowed by the living on these sacred places, for an old proverb says: “you are to judge a people by their reverence for their dead and for their heroes of the past.”

It fills one too, with sad sweet thoughts of the long ago as he gets down and reads the inscription on a marble slab over some friend of his younger days. Fifty years ago there was no sign of a cemetery at Pittsboro, now the bones of some 1400 people including infants are moldering beneath the sod here. We can hardly realize the fact that the average interment for the last half century has been 28 a year, yet it must be remembered that this has been a burial place for a considerable territory and sometimes the remains of individuals from a great distance.

The yard is comparatively well kept and there are many attractive tombstones and monuments bearing epitaphs which call up thoughts of the past.

J. B. Morris and his kind old consort were among the first pioneers to this country. Uncle Joe and Aunt Peggy were well known and liked by younger people here 25 or 30 years ago, now they sleep side by side and the slabs above them informs the passerby that Mr. Morris was 83 years and six months old at his death, his wife had preceded him on a few months.  He was born in 1800 and she in 1821.

Another old pioneer couple that slumber here is Judge Eli Byars and his wife, Sarah, they were well known hereabout 40 years ago, and were well beloved by those who came first.  Judge Byars was born 1807, his wife in 1819.  But the earliest date we notice is that of Wm Sugg (supposedly the father of Prof. J. A. Sugg deceased and of the venerable H. T. Sugg of Big Creek) the date of his birth as given was 1793, he died during the civil war in 1864.

Captain E. R. Enochs and his two wives are sleeping here; he was a veteran of two wars, was born in 1821 and came here from Tennessee after having served in the Mexican war.

Sanders Swaffer, than whom a better man never lived, is sleeping beside Mary, his beloved wife.  He was a veteran of some of the old Indian wars and was a lieutenant in Co. F 4th Miss. Inft. In the war between the states, his company loved him like a father.  He was 67 years old when he died in 1886.

Major H. C. Horton came here from Tennessee about 1848.  When a young man 24 years of age he was a useful citizen and a brave confederate officer.

Well, we should like to mention many others, but afear to tax farther the patience of our readers.

John A. Wear lived 54 years and was buried just before the beginning of the war, Judge J. S. and Z. J. Ryan who only a few years ago were well known throughout the county and were honored by the people, rest here till the resurrection morning.  There also repose the mortal remains of old Drs. Roane, Ryan, Capt. DuBerry and his beloved wife, Silas and Ransom Pilgreen, Esq. Sam A. Spence: and wife and a host that we can’t mention now.

These with many other pioneers and veterans who sleep in this cemetery deserve to be mentioned and remembered for their noble deeds are worth of perpetuation.  Their upright principals and patriotism left us as an inheritance are worthy to be followed.  In every graveyard of any magnitude in this county may be found the moldering remains of just men and women. Can they be forgotten? Never.